Chapter 5
Chapter Five
SLOAN
The sound of an axe splitting wood jolts me awake from a deep sleep. The steady thunk, thunk, thunk echoes through the cabin walls.
Sunlight streams through the bedroom windows now, weak and pale but definitely daylight. How long have I been asleep? An hour? Three?
The chopping continues steadily outside. He's out there somewhere, probably preparing to keep me locked up here all winter.
There’s a plate of bacon and eggs accompanied by a steaming mug of coffee on the nightstand next to me, making my stomach instantly growl, but that’s not where my mind’s at right now. I need to learn more about him.
My heart hammers against my ribs as I slide out of bed, my bare feet silent on the hardwood floor. With him occupied outside, I have the opportunity to look around. To search for information I can use against him and eventually find a way out of here.
I creep to the bedroom door and ease it open, wincing at the soft creak of hinges.
The main living area is empty, sunlight streaming through those floor-to-ceiling windows that offer such beautiful views of my frozen Hell.
I can see him through the glass. He moves so surely, splitting log after log, his breath visible in the cold air.
He's taken off his coat, working in just a black t-shirt that clings to his frame. The muscles in his shoulders and arms flex with each swing of the axe, and I'm struck again by how different he is from Alex. Broader. Stronger. More predatory in every possible way. How didn’t I notice?
Focus, Sloan. You don't have long.
I pad through the living room on silent feet, memorizing every detail.
The front door has multiple locks—deadbolts and chains that would take minutes to undo.
The windows are large but don't appear to open, and even if they did, the drop to the ground outside would probably break something important.
But it's not the lack of escape routes that make my blood run cold. It's what I find when I start really looking at the fine details of this place.
My shampoo sits on the bathroom counter. The expensive stuff I splurge on because it makes my red hair shine like copper pennies. He didn’t bring this with him when we drove out here last night. He only brought a small black backpack…
He's been planning this for much longer than I realized.
My hands shake as I continue through the cabin. In the kitchen, the refrigerator is stocked with my favorite yogurt. The coffee is the exact blend I drink every morning. There's even a bottle of the vitamin supplements I take, still in their familiar amber container.
He’s trying to make a complete reconstruction of my life...
The realization makes my knees weak, and I have to grip the kitchen counter to keep from falling. This is so much worse than I thought it was.
But there's more to discover, and the sound of chopping is still echoing from outside. I force myself to keep moving, to keep searching for anything that might help me understand more about him.
That's when I find his shrine.
It's in what should be a spare bedroom, tucked away at the back of the cabin. At first glance, it looks like an office—desk, chair, filing cabinet. Normal enough. But as I step inside, the true horror of what I'm seeing settles over me like a bucket of ice water.
The walls are covered with pictures of me.
Hundreds of them, printed on regular paper and tacked up like some grotesque collage.
Me leaving my apartment in the morning. Me at the grocery store.
Me getting my hair done at the salon where I work.
Me laughing with friends at restaurants I barely remember visiting.
Some of the photos are taken from a distance, obviously shot with a telephoto lens. Others are closer, intimate shots that suggest he was sometimes mere feet away from me. There's one of me sitting in my car at a red light, completely unaware that someone was documenting my entire life.
But it's not just photos.
The desk is covered with notebooks, their pages filled with his handwriting.
I grab the nearest one with trembling hands, flipping it open to reveal page after page of notes about my daily life.
What time I leave for work. Which coffee shop I stop at.
How long I spend at the gym. What I wear on different days of the week.
Tuesday, October 15th – Red sweater, black jeans. Stopped at Starbucks, ordered venti caramel macchiato, extra shot. Seemed tired. Probably stayed up late watching Netflix again. She does that when she's anxious about something.
Friday, October 18th – She's been avoiding Alex's calls. Smart girl. He doesn't deserve her attention. Soon she won't have to pretend to care about his pathetic attempts at conversation.
Sunday, October 27th – Went to brunch with Cara. Laughed more in two hours than I've seen her laugh all month with Alex. She needs friends who understand her. She needs someone who can make her laugh like that every day.
The entries go on and on, an exact record of my life written by someone who's been watching me like I’m a lab rat and he’s studying me. Some of his observations are uncomfortably accurate…
But it's the personal commentary that makes me want to fold in on myself. The way he interprets my moods and behaviors through the lens of his obsession… Like he's already a part of my life instead of a stalker documenting it from the shadows.
I flip to more recent entries, looking for clues about his plans.
December 20th – She bought a red dress for the trip to Holly Grove. She'll look beautiful in it. Alex won't appreciate what he has, but I will. Soon.
December 23rd – Last day of watching from a distance. Tomorrow night, everything changes. Tomorrow night, she becomes mine.
Tomorrow night. Christmas Eve. The night he murdered his fucking brother and destroyed my life.
My hands are shaking so badly I can barely turn the pages, but I force myself to keep reading. There has to be something useful here. Some details about his plans or this location that could help me escape.
That's when I find the photographs that aren't of me.
They're mixed in with the surveillance shots, easy to miss at first glance.
But as I look closer, I realize they're pictures of Alex.
Not recent ones. These look like they're from years ago, maybe even decades.
Two young boys who look almost identical, standing side by side in what appears to be a church.
But in every single photo, one of the boys has been mutilated. His face scratched out with ink. His body circled in red marker. Sometimes there are words scrawled across the image in angry, jagged handwriting:
WEAK.
UNWORTY.
MISTAKE.
The boy being defaced is always the same one. Always the one who isn't Asher.
Alex.
There are dozens of these photos, spanning what looks like years of their childhood. School pictures. Family portraits. Candid shots at birthday parties and holidays. And in every single one, Alex has been violently removed from the narrative, turned into a target of rage.
What happened between them? What could drive someone to this level of hatred for their own twin?
But there's no time to psychoanalyze his childhood trauma. I suddenly realize the chopping outside has stopped, which means he’ll be coming back inside any moment. I need to put everything back exactly as I found it and get back to the bedroom before he realizes I've left the bed.
I'm about to close the notebook when I spot something that makes my heart sink.
Phase 1: Remove Alex from the equation. Make it look like he snapped under pressure. Leave evidence pointing to jealous rage and subsequent flight.
Phase 2: Bring Sloan to the mountain house. Let her adjust to her new reality. Begin building trust and dependency.
Phase 3: Move to a permanent location. Alaska or Canada. Complete isolation. No chance of discovery or rescue.
He’s planning to take me even farther into the middle of nowhere.
The notebook slips from my nerveless fingers, pages fluttering as it hits the floor. Both places are thousands of miles away from everything and everyone I know. If he gets me there, I'll disappear completely. No one will ever find me.
I scramble to pick up the notebook, my hands shaking as I try to find the right page again. There has to be more information. Details. Timelines for when he plans to move me.
But the sound of the front door opening sends panic shooting through my nervous system like lightning.
"Sloan?" His voice carries through the cabin, closer than I expected. "Where are you?"
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
I shove the notebook back onto the desk, trying to arrange everything exactly as I found it. But my hands are shaking too badly, and I can hear his footsteps moving through the main living area. Any second now, he's going to realize I'm not in the bedroom where he left me.
"I brought you something," he calls out, his voice grossly warm and affectionate. "I thought you might be getting cold."
I back away from the desk, my heart hammering through my chest. The photographs on the walls seem to mock me—hundreds of moments from my life, stolen and displayed like trophies.
His footsteps are getting closer, moving down the hallway toward the bedrooms. I have maybe thirty seconds before he finds me here and realizes I've discovered his sick shrine.
Think, Sloan. Think.
I can't make it back to the bedroom without him seeing me. But maybe I can pretend I was looking for a bathroom. Maybe I can—
"There you are."
The voice comes from directly behind me, and I spin around to find him standing in the doorway. His dark hair is tousled from the wind, and there are flakes of snow on his shoulders. He looks perfectly normal, perfectly harmless—until I see his eyes.
Those predatory eyes that miss nothing.